Iridescent forms strategic relationship with Founders Space

Iridescent is a young nonprofit working to foster curiosity, confidence, and a love for science and engineering in underprivileged and under-represented kids. We connect these kids to university student and industry professional volunteers that we have trained to be teachers/mentors/role models, and through our interactive, hands-on curricula work to create sustainable, long-term links between needs and resources of the community. Iridescent started in Los Angeles in 2007, and has expanded in the last year from Los Angeles to New York and the Bay Area, where we are conducting the pilot program of the Technovation Challenge (www.iridescentbayarea.org), an 8-week curriculum sponsored by Google, where 45 high school girls are learning to develop mobile apps on the Google Android platform, and the entrepreneurial skills necessary to make their ideas happen: the pilot program culminates with ‘pitch night’ on April 22nd at the Microsoft campus.

We’d like to invite interested folks to come to pitch night and meet the next generation of female entrepreneurs! The free event is April 22nd, from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View, CA (see link for registration and more info). The girls will be presenting their prototypes and business plans to a judging panel of VC’s and other industry professionals – including Katherine Barr of MDV, Theresia Gouw Ranzetta of Accel, and Adeo Ressi of The Founder Institute. We will also have a keynote speech by Diane Greene, Founder of VMware. Top prizes will include internships at local tech companies, college savings bonds, and redevelopment of the winning app by a professional development team and placement on Google Marketplace. It’s going to be a great night – come support the girls!

We are actively looking for new partners to help us extend the program to other parts of the bay area. If your company or organizations might be interested in hosting girls as a summer interns, setting up a mentor program, helping us connect with needy kids in new regions of the bay area, or sponsoring the program in some way, we’d love to hear from you!

For more information/inquiries, please contact Bryan Johnston, Director of Operations, San Francisco Bay Area Bryan [at] IridescentLearning.org or visit www.iridescentlearning.org